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A 19-year-old arsonist was sentenced Tuesday to over five years in jail for setting a sleeping homeless man on fire on board a subway car that was passing through Midtown.
Hiram Carrero was handed the 66-month imprisonment after he was charged for the “heinous” attack that left his 56-year-old victim with permanent disfigurement in the early morning attack on Dec. 1.
Carrero, of Harlem, was captured on surveillance footage boarding the No. 3 train at the 34th Street – Penn Station station just after 3 a.m. and lit a piece of paper on fire, the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said Tuesday.
The firebug used the flaming sheet to ignite his sleeping victim on fire before he hopped off the train back onto the Penn Station platform as the train continued northbound.
Carrero lingered at the station for about 45 minutes after the attack before taking off, sources previously told The Post.
The burning man, with his legs engulfed in flames, rushed out of the car as the train rolled into the 42nd Street and Times Square station.
The unidentified victim lay on the station’s platform near the tracks as the fire enveloped his lap, according to disturbing footage shared by the Manhattan US Attorney.
First responders extinguished the flames, and a portion of the subway car was damaged by the fire.
Carrero’s victim was taken to New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in critical condition, having suffered significant burn injuries and leaving him with permanent extensive scarring and disfigurement.
Officials say he was saved because first responders got to him after a “mercifully short trip” from Penn Station to Times Square.
Prosecutors sought an eight-year jail sentence and argued Carrero tried to kill “a sleeping, homeless man by burning him alive and leaving him trapped on a moving subway car.”
The pyromaniac, who was a high school senior at the time of the attack, was arrested and charged with attempted murder, assault, criminal mischief, arson and reckless endangerment.
In March, Carrero pleaded guilty to arson and admitted he intentionally lit the piece of paper that harmed the man.
Carrero was also handed three years of supervised release and ordered to pay restitution.
“Setting fire to another person is a breathtaking, horrific, and unconscionable crime,” US Attorney Jay Clayton said Tuesday. “Thanks to first responders and the women and men of the NYPD and the FDNY, the victim’s life was saved, and a horrific tragedy was averted. Subway safety is front of mind for our Office, the NYPD, and our federal partners. Today’s sentence demonstrates that anyone who terrorizes New Yorkers on the subway or anywhere else will face swift justice.”
Carrero’s lawyer, Jennifer Brown, called for leniency for his client because he was abandoned by his parents at the hospital after birth when he was born prematurely with drugs in his system.
Brown claimed “things fell apart for” Carrero during the pandemic in 2020 and had “profound shame and remorse” following the attack.
With Post wires
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